Unofficial news and tips about Google

January 12, 2012

Blocked Sites, No Longer Available in Google Search?

Last year, Google released a feature that allowed you to block sites from appearing in your search results. After clicking a result and going back to the search results page, Google displayed a special link next to the result for blocking the entire domain.

The feature no longer seems to work: the "block" link is no longer displayed, the preferences page doesn't mention the feature and the blocked domains still appear in Google's results. The page that allows you to manage blocked sites is still available.

"When you're signed in to Google, you can block a specific website from appearing in your future search results. This is a helpful option when you encounter a site that you don't like and whose pages you want to remove from your future results. If you change your mind, you can unblock the site at any point," explains a help center page.

Update: Google's Matt Cutts says that this could be a temporary issue. "The right people are looking at what needs to happen to re-enable this, but it might take some time."

87 comments:

in my personal experience, if the blocked site is the top result for a query, google tends to show it irrespective of the block status. this has confused me for a long time. but i am not seeing the blocked domains other than the top 1-2-3 position.

I noticed the same thing. For example, if I need help on homework there are a few good sites - yet somehow "chegg" ends up holding the top 10 positions at times! Usually just 10 copies of the same problem being worked out, all wrong in their own way most of the time, and you have to pay to view them at all and they have a very low consumer score.

I tried blocking "www.chegg.com" and it appears on my block list, but chegg still occupies an entire page of google search results. And often times has results mixed into the pages that follow. Making matters worse is I usually read the link description more than the URL, so I keep clicking chegg links.

As far as I can tell chegg is likely paying google off for high placement and to keep people from blocking them.

Hey, take this with a grain of salt because I had a quick passing conversation with someone about this, but I believe this is temporary. The right people are looking at what needs to happen to re-enable this, but it might take some time.

Glad someone noticed this, this features is really important to me because it means I don't have to see anything from TvTropes when searching for random subjects. Having that site turn up as the first result when searching for historical things makes me want to slam my head into my keyboard.

Yes, today many online sites and services are protesting the impending Internet Anti-Piracy legislation that the MPAA and RIAA are lobbying for congress to pass. The english language Wikipedia site is also down for the day, and other sites are either going to be down, or restrict use in some way.

You mean ExpertSexChange.com? They added the dash later on. Stupid site should DIAF, along with all of the other "aggregation" sites. I don't need Google search results to turn into a constant "Yo Dawg" joke.

So much for being 'temporary'. Google should concentrate on getting the basic things right - and working - before it starts messing about with adolescent name changes.. Google 'Drive', Google 'Play'... Pff!

Just noticed this broken while trying to block a Debian-oriented splog. Sadly this splog is coasting near the top of results, by having copied and slightly modified official Debian documentation. I hope Google not only fixes this issue, but lets us make our blacklists social. A move like that would pretty much force me to sign up for Google+.

Google is too busy making "cute" little statues that make their front lawn look like a white trash family's after a post Christmas sale at Walmart, this feature will only come back if they can figure out some way to force Google+ into it "4000 Google+ members blocked this site! Join today!"

The feature works for me, so it's still available. The only change is that Google no longer shows the link that allowed you to block any site from the search results. You have to manually block sites here: https://www.google.com/reviews/t?hl=en

I don`t think it is a secret anymore, that Google is a insidious abusive corporation. Yes, their search engine is still the best, unfortunately. Yet they do their best to annoy us by trying to force feed us the crap they keep inventing daily... They will never block sites they promote their crap on...Google needs more money...screeeeew the users, right? :)

They just shouted "SCREW YOU" to masses with what they have done with youtube mobile, watching a video in Safari on the iPad no longer uses the built in fullscreen player instead it uses some html5 video thing that can't go fullscreen all so they can force awful ads on us. They also refused to renew the Youtube app license with Apple so say goodbye to the ad-free clutter-free design of Apple's app and say hello to having awful ads and god awful featured videos rammed down your throat when you want to watch your subscriptions when you use Google's new app.

The blocked sites I have defined are still appearing in my search results, even when the Personal Results radio button is checked. I wish they'd fix this issue so I don't have to wade through a bunch of crappy intelius, spokeo, and mylife results every time I look someone up.

Does anyone know if Bing has site blocking?I've been blocking informer.com, software.informer.com, java.informer.com, porn,informer.com, etc. but it still shows up.If you don't already know, informer.com is a spam site that has thousands of shill backlinks and hundreds of spambots that's constantly update their meta data and steal web space to host ambush porn. It's all those porn sites you see that your kids run across. They upload porn to insecure dedicated servers/vps/cloud and stream them to their websites based in the Dominican republic, Nigeria, and Sversk.

I hate to admit it, but they are some smart puppies, updating their virii and spyware that automatically install onto your PC just from the search link Google shows.

I've been a network security administrator (legal hacker to you youngsters), since 1996 and designed the first 8-bit game for stand-up consoles in 1989.

Please stay away from that site for your own good, AVS won't work.PS If you're wondering why your Windows 7 system suddenly got slow after December 23, three weeks after Microsoft release Windows 8, take a look at the December 23 .NET update (if you have the ability to view the raw code/decompile). A changed class for the Sata/IDE control now has it at 1/100*100 giving 100% speed, being 1.5Gbps for SataII/3Gbps for SataIII SSD. The code has been changed to 1/100*(mtimernd/80*60)The Random class reads:mtimernd = mtime($random)

The new code cuts your Sata speeds consistently by 20%*40% with the mtimernd causing the access latency to randomly be anywhere from 0-100% of what it should be, instead of constant 100%.

MS also hired several thousand people in East India to answer these trouble tickets and inform customers that they need to upgrade to Windows 8. They have all been trained using a guide called bythebook, which is standardized policy on training India tech support how to legally scam customers.

Yeah, well it's been a year and the shit still isn't available. Google doesn't give a damn what people want, their programers are complete idiots with no clue as to what people want, and even if they did they don't care.

They are more concerned with accessing every piece of personal information about you and using it, as well as making it available to the government. Google doesn't even have a decent help program and the people answering questions on google.support are unpaid idiots.

My favorite answer to a question on google support, when someone asked what google remote viewering plug in was for & whether it was needed to run any programs & could it be disabled: it's something google put there so you don't need to worry about it. The name itself is worrying. He didn't answer the question and that answer pissed off a lot of people.

If the feature doesn't work - and it doesn't - then Google should remove the option to select it until it does work. The "right people" have been looking into this issue since June 2012 and the option is still available and it's still not working. Sure glad the "wrong people" haven't been working on it.